The stability of graphite furnace characteristic mass data

Abstract An inter-laboratory furnace AAS study is described involving 16 laboratories in Europe and North America. The characteristic masses for Ag, Cu, Cr and Pb were measured using NIST SRM 1643a trace metals in water. Stabilized temperature platform furnace conditions with Zeeman background correction were used for this study. Three different platform designs were compared and a new design called a fork platform was shown to provide some improved performance with respect to the stability of characteristic mass. The protocol exposed situations in specific laboratories that yielded less than satisfactory analytical results. For Pb and Cr the preferable platform design yielded characteristic mass values very close to the ± 20% limits around an expected value. In a few laboratories the Ag characteristic mass was outside this limit. Copper provided the most discrepant characteristic mass results.